Forum:14: Festivals, Flames, Fallen Empires
The party, returning from their journey to find one of the White-Haired Killers, were informed by an indomitably cheery Yellow that the first snowfall of the winter season was predicted in three days, meaning that the annual First Snow festival would be celebrated in Cao Luang. The group, opting to take some time to rest, spent the next few days preparing for the event, but also opting to learn a bit about their surroundings. Through some consultation and learning, Lin picked up some more of the story behind the Nataraja and the Cao Imperial Court: The ruling family of the Court tended to be overthrown as the Mandate passed from one group to the next, and the Cao family, the current rulers, had been now burdened with a leader of some would say questionable competence. However, the current Emperor's ambition to reclaim the lands of the Zhou continent has angered the Nataraja who currently exist in Jiang, and they have rallied under Vajra in an attempt to curb this ambition. People thus say that Vajra, being the most prominent opponent of the Cao may be a likely candidate for the next Emperor, should his revolution succeed, though Xianmei reports that he has no intention of claiming it. Artyom, for his part, opted to look into the provenance of the scrolls of Baihu's Last Breath and discovered a temple dedicated to Baihu, the House of White Fangs, housing both healers and fierce warriors. The head of the temple, Master Rui, claimed that the scrolls were originally stolen from the temple some time ago, and were being misused as tools of vengeance. The true intent behind their creation was to empower humans against the beasts of the wild who threatened the survival of man. Only the greatest priest of Baihu can create another scroll, and Rui himself has expressed no interest in creating more, especially given the fate of the last group. He informed Artyom that he also must return any scrolls recovered to the temple to their rightful place. Ten-Tongues, for his part, did some more research into medicine and the current locations of the other scrolls, hiding the group's scroll on the ship in a secure case and preparing means to detect the others. The group, on the festival day, were invited by a Nataraja member to go to the Firebird's Eternal Flame, a monument to Zhuque, to attend the Nataraja's function. The party involved teaching some of the downtrodden poor of Cao Luang the Nataraja's own fighting technique as well as providing them food. Daggerfist Zheng was in attendance, and was accompanied by an aged woman known as Golden Eyes Ping, who claimed to be an oracle cursed with an early old age. She spoke with Artyom about their respective fates and her belief in the way that elements of the world reflect or parallel one another. The rest of the group, meanwhile, was approached by a woman called Lily Wen, who said she was there to warn them that the Imperial guard were going to attack the festival. The group was then set upon by numerous soldiers who were capturing any festival-goers they could get their hands on, and donned face masks before breaking through to one of the residential districts. On their way, they got separated from Zheng, Ping, Wen, and Artyom. The three remaining members fought valiantly through the streets before taking down a watchtower and discovering a latent talent of Lin's, known as the Hero Action "Firebird's Flight". Ten-Tongues, moving stealthily through the streets, also located another scroll of Baihu's Last Breath on the person of a regal looking man apparently coordinating the effort to raid the festival on behalf of the court. The man was magically gifted, and somehow managed to detect Ten-Tongues' presence and pierce his invisibility. Though Ten-Tongues escaped unscathed, the man did spot him, and Ten-Tongues thereafter decided to try and initiate contact since he believed their respective aims the same. The group thus opted to rejoin Artyom at the place he escaped to in the company of Lily Wen, known as the Red Butterfly. He told them to find it in the north end of the city, before, as surreptitiously as he could, informing them that he suspected their saviours to be some sort of assassins.... Rewards: 1800 exp per person Items recovered from the guard detail: One short sword, two spears, two sashes, two composite shortbows, a fan, a ring, a headband, all as yet unidentified.